Deblois town clerk up for her 48th year Virginia Torrey, 82, runs alone in town of 75 residents

DEBLOIS – A true doyenne of details, Virginia Torrey gets another shot today at doing what she does best.

Nobody dares oppose her at the annual town meeting, when she stands for election – again – for town clerk.

Torrey, who turned 82 last month, has been the town clerk since 1956. On Monday, she will start in her 48th year of service to the town.

There are 75 residents in the town, 60 of them registered voters. They will gather in the municipal building at 7 p.m.

Business will take about an hour, as it usually does, then someone will break out the coffee and doughnuts.

“Our meetings don’t take too long,” Torrey said last week. “We all get along pretty good in town anyway, so nobody argues.”

The most divisive issue in memory, Torrey said, was the time when two people ran for one selectman’s seat.

Hands raise together for everything most years. This year, though, eyebrows may raise at the jump in the budget allocated for schools. After holding steady at about $78,000 since 1997, the town needs to raise $105,000 to tuition its 14 students to Cherryfield Elementary and Narraguagus High schools.

Torrey serves on the town’s school committee, too.

She also was a selectman for 10 years. She remembers best the years when all three selectmen were women.

These years, not much happens in the town that sits along Route 193, 12 miles north of Cherryfield and about eight miles south of the Airline.

August brings hundreds of migrant workers to Jasper Wyman & Son’s extensive blueberry fields and camps, but the town is quiet again by Labor Day.

The rest of the year, “People drive through Deblois and don’t even know it.”

For 44 years, Torrey also has had the responsibility of letting others know about Deblois. She has been a faithful correspondent for the Machias Valley News Observer, an area weekly paper.

But she doesn’t do a weekly column of chitchat.

“Oh, there’s not enough news for that,” she said. “I have to wait until I collect enough items to make something long enough.”

Torrey doesn’t have to look far for another example of longevity in the town clerk position. In just the next town, Cherryfield had Percy Wakefield as its clerk for 54 years. He stepped down in 1961.

Despite all her years in office, Virginia Torrey still comes up short in Maine history when it comes to town clerks.

According to the Maine Municipal Association, that honor probably rests with one Walter Trundy. He served Stockton Springs for 67 years, well into his 90s.

So Torrey has just 20 years ahead of her to set a new record.